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Toronto researchers among MIT’s 35 top innovators

MIT has included two Toronto-based researchers on its list of the top 35 innovators under 35, published in the prestigious university’s Technology Review. People that made previous lists include Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.The Star spoke with the two Toronto honorees:Joyce Poon, a University of Toronto assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department whose work might change the way large corporations such as Facebook and Google store information.Hossein Rahnama, research director of Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone and founder and CEO of Flybits, is working on a paradigm shift in the way people use their mobile devices.

Joyce Poon is one of two Toronto researchers included in MIT's list of the world's "Top 35 Under 35" innovators. (Jason Krygier-Baum / Courtesy University of toronto)

Ryerson professor Hossein Rahnama, the Research and Innovation Director of the Digital Media Zone at Ryerson University, was named in the Massachussets Institute of Technology's Top 35 Under 35 list of innovators.
(Pawel Dwulit / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

By Chantaie AllickStaff Reporter

Tues., Aug. 21, 2012

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Hossein Rahnama

Q: Tell me a bit about your research.

A: The focus of my research is on building expert systems and intelligent systems, especially with a focus on mobile devices and this notion of ubiquitous computing.

Q: How will everyday people be able to use your research in the future?

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A: Think about if you arrive at Union Station and realize that there’s a train delay. The phone will notify you without the need for you to search for that data or go through multiple menu items to find that data. Then, because it knows that you’re late and there’s a delay, probably it will provision a coupon on your handset so you can have a free coffee.

Q: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in pursuing your work?

A: Definitely we are looking for first adopters, because we are introducing a disruptive technology which is different than how people are using their devices these days. It is changing the paradigm of how people are using mobile devices, so we are looking for partners, or customers or companies, who are willing to try new technologies.

Q: What does this recognition from Technology Review mean for you?

A: It’s definitely an honour and privilege to be part of that list. I’m hoping that I can use it to showcase the potential that we have in Toronto in terms of skill sets and the infrastructure that we have.

Q: What are the next steps for you?

A: To continue the research and to grow the company and make it a global Canadian company based in Toronto.

Joyce Poon

Q: Tell me a bit about your research.

A: My research is in the area of photonics, the field where we develop devices and components that can control light, and we use light to communicate information.

To have (cross continental) optical communication networks, you need a lot of different types of devices, like lasers, switches and so on, and that’s what my group does: We invent these kinds of devices for optical communication.

Q: What practical problem does it address?

A: Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft — all the big companies run these huge computing facilities called data centres. These data centres contain literally hundreds of thousands of computers, and they are networked together and they store and process information for users.

One problem is that these facilities take up a lot of power.

My group is trying to address this power consumption problem by developing optical devices that can be used to eventually form optical communication networks that can go inside these computing facilities.

Q: What’s the value of the work?

A: I think the highest value right now for me at the moment is really about discovering new things and then being able to translate it into some very early technology. My research in its nature is a bit more long-term. We’re not discovering cosmological, “big bang” type of things — not that long term, not that fundamental. But it really sits between a science of discovering something, understanding some physical effect and being able to apply it and control and understand that effect so that we can use it in a device — being able to engineer it into something useful.

Q: What are some of the challenges you face in pursuing your work?

A: We overcome challenges every day. There are a lot of day-to-day technical challenges. There are lots of problems that we don’t know how to solve and nobody has solved them before, so we just have to figure out new ways of solving those problems.

The kind of research that I do, it’s hard to find homegrown Canadian companies that have the capability to do that kind of exploration. The research can be transformative, but it’s a little long term. The sector itself and the funding model itself isn’t really encouraging support for more fundamental research.

Q: What does this recognition mean for you?

A: I feel honoured to be part of it, to be selected. But on the other hand my goal is to do a lot of great research and do great work — and so this feels a little bit like something along the way. It’s a nice encouragement, but I think there’s still a lot of work to do.

In addition to that, I am just one person in my research team. I have about seven other graduate students and we work together to achieve what we do achieve. I think I’m just sort of a representative in many ways. It feels nice, but it really is a team effort. It’s impossible to achieve the kind of work that we do by oneself.

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